It has been a tough couple of days for the popular social network Facebook. First, a virus spread across the network, posting a fake message with a malicious link on users' behalf.
Then Khalil Shreateh, a hacker from Palestine, broke into the page of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Risk zones
To protect their accounts and computers from attacks by viruses and hackers, cybersecurity specialists advise users to ignore suspicious messages with links and delete them without opening, to scan their computers with antivirus software, and to get into the habit of changing their account passwords at least once every six months.
While the first precautions are clear enough, the last one is not so simple. Users love the simplest passwords, such as password, 12345678, qwerty and so on, which makes life noticeably easier for hackers and malware. Experts explained to Vesti that a database of the most popular passwords is easy to find online, after which such an account can be cracked effortlessly with a simple program. To guard against this, cybersecurity specialists advise not to neglect complex password combinations — that means at least 5 characters, including digits and letters.
Your computer should also have at least the most basic antivirus installed, but remember that it will not give you 100% protection. So do not run any suspicious .exe files and do not download files from unverified sources. You should also be wary of some social media apps and games, as they may be hacked.
"The trouble is that malicious programs, like the viruses that attack the human body, mutate. Just as the flu virus changes, so do viruses on the web. That's why there is no universal cure," said Hennadiy Hulak, information security expert at the IT consortium Intecracy Group. The expert recommends using antivirus programs in combination. "Because one detects a certain share of viruses, and another detects the rest," he says, adding that if an antivirus is set up to work with a web application, it will warn the user of a threat as soon as they open a social media page.
Fans of free internet access are also at risk. Experts say it would take little effort for the owner of a Wi-Fi network to install a scanner that can easily gain full access to your computer or phone and read all your passwords.
Meanwhile, the new Facebook virus disguises itself as a photo named "summertime-funny.jpg.exe". The danger arrives in the form of messages with a link from other users. If you have infected your Facebook account, you should change your password as soon as possible and warn your friends about the danger. After that, launch your antivirus program, update it and run a full system scan to clean the viruses off your computer.
Simple combinations
In the meantime, here is a selection of the most common user passwords that you should definitely avoid:
password, 123456, qwerty, dragon, pussy, baseball, football, letmein, monkey, 696969, abc123, mustang, michael, shadow, master, jennifer, 111111, 2000, jordan, superman, harley (data from SplashData following a leak of user passwords from around the world).
For Wi-Fi networks, people who would rather not clutter their minds with long combinations of numbers and letters use the following passwords: password1, zxc123, their date of birth (dd.mm.yy), iloveyou, their username, their email address, vkontakte.
Source: Vesti